George Jones, 'King of Broken Hearts,' dies at 81

Apr. 26, 2013

In this April 1996 file photo, George Jones is shown in Nashville. / Mark Humphrey/AP

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“The King of Broken Hearts” just broke many more.

Country Music Hall of Famer George Jones, a master of sad country ballads whose voice held the bracing power, the sweetness and the burn of an evening’s final pull from a bourbon bottle, died Friday morning at a Nashville hospital. He was 81, and was often called the greatest male vocalist in country music history.

George Glenn Jones was dubbed “The Possum” because of his marsupial resemblance, and later called “No Show Jones” because of his mid-career propensity for missing stage appointments. Those monikers seem trifling in comparison to “The King of Broken Hearts,” which became the title of a Jim Lauderdale-written tribute recorded by George Strait and Lee Ann Womack. Lauderdale was inspired by country-rock forerunner Gram Parsons, who would play Mr. Jones’ albums at parties and silence the room with an admonition to listen to the King of Broken Hearts.

“The King of Broken Hearts doesn’t know he’s the king,” wrote Lauderdale. “He’s trying to forget other things/ Like some old chilly scenes/ He’s walking through alone.”

Jones was well familiar with such scenes. He was bruised by alcohol and drug use, and in later, happier and sober years he wondered at the adulation afforded him, given the recklessness with which he had at times treated his talent.

“I messed up my life way back there, drinking and boozing and all that kind of stuff,” he told The Tennessean in 2008. “And you wish you could just erase it all. You can’t do that, though. You just have to live it down the best you can.”

The best he could was to sing about it, with an unblinking emotional truth that regularly rivaled and sometimes surpassed his own heroes, Hank Williams and Roy Acuff. He could offer a wink and a smile on quirky up-tempo hits “The Race Is On” and “White Lightning,” but he built his legacy with the sorrowful stuff. Betrayal, desperation and hopelessness found their most potent conduit in Jones.

“Definitely, unequivocally, the best there ever was or will be, period,” is how the Village Voice’s Patrick Carr assessed Jones’ contribution.

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Producer Cowboy Jack Clement, a 50-year friend of Jones who has also worked with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton and many others said, “I think George is probably the greatest country singer who ever lived. And I’m not alone in that opinion. All the artists loved him. The music just flows out of him. It’s the most natural thing.”

Jones’ signature song was the Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman-penned “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” which regularly lands atop critics’ lists of greatest country recordings. In it, the King of Broken Hearts sang of a man whose death signaled the end of his unrequited love. In the studio, the song was difficult to capture, exacerbated by Jones’ slurring of the spoken-word portion: When inebriated, he sung more clearly than he spoke. When the recording was finally concluded, Jones told producer Billy Sherrill, “It ain’t gonna sell. Nobody’ll buy that morbid son of a b----.”

But they did. Jones consistently credited Sherrill with the song’s success, but it was the empathy in Mr. Jones’ voice that made the song’s abject sadness somehow palatable.

“I’d rather sing a sad song than eat,” said Jones, who sometimes lacked for food (he once withered to 105 pounds) but never for sad songs to sing. His treatment of those songs made him a legend, a designation which ultimately afforded him an uncomplicated satisfaction that capped a complicated life.

Guitar becomes lifeline

Born in Saratoga, Texas, on Sept. 12, 1931, Jones grew up hard. His father was an alcoholic prone to drunken anger, but he bought his son a mail-order catalogue guitar that turned out to be a lifeline.

“After my dad got me my first little guitar, I wouldn’t lay it down, hardly,” Jones told The Tennessean. “I took it to school with me. I’d hide it in the woods and cover it with leaves, and if a big rain came and it got wet, I’d pour the water out of it. Them guitars never warped.”

By 15, Jones was playing and singing on the streets of Beaumont, Texas.

“A lot of them started throwing change down in front of me, down on the concrete,” he said. “When I was done, I counted it and it was $24 and something, and that was more money than I’d ever seen in my life.”

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With his initial earnings, Jones went to a penny arcade, bought candy and played pinball. He married Dorothy Bonvillon in 1950, and divorced a year later. And Jones joined the U.S. Marine Corps in the early 1950s. He was in the Marines when he heard of the Jan. 1, 1953, death of Hank Williams: Jones wept in the barracks to hear of the demise of his hero.

In 1954, Jones was out of the Marines. He embarked on a recording career, making records for the Texas-based Starday label. On Starday, Jones scored his first Top Five hit, “Why Baby Why,” in 1955. He soon began recording in Nashville for Mercury Records, where he notched his first top-charting hit, 1959’s “White Lightning,” along with notables “Color Of The Blues,” ‘’Tender Years” and “Who Shot Sam.”

Jones moved to United Artists Records in 1962, scoring a No. 1 hit with his first United Artists recording, a Dickey Lee song pitched to him by Clement called “She Thinks I Still Care.”

For United Artists, Jones recorded notables including “You Comb Her Hair,” ‘’The Race Is On” and “Least Of All.” He and then-manager and producer Pappy Daily moved on to Musicor Records in 1965 and cut major hits including “Walk Through This World With Me,” ‘’If My Heart Had Windows” and the devastating “A Good Year For The Roses.”

'I'd thrown everything away'

In 1968, Jones and his second wife, Shirley Ann Corley, divorced after 14 years of marriage. A year later, he married singer Tammy Wynette. Their union produced some emotionally captivating music, including No. 1 hits “We’re Gonna Hold On,” ‘’Golden Ring” and “Near You,” but day-to-day relations were problematic.

Jones and Wynette divorced in 1975, and he found himself at loose ends, driftless and under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Jones went five years without a No. 1 solo hit after 1975’s “The Door” before he entered the studio with producer Billy Sherrill, who wanted him to record a song called “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”

“That one was so damn sad that I just didn’t think it’d be a hit,” Jones told The Tennessean. “I told Billy Sherrill that, and he said, ‘You just trust me. I’m gonna release it. Maybe it’s the right time for a sad song.’”

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“He Stopped Loving Her Today” became a Grammy Hall of Fame song and a turning point in Jones’ career. He’d earned a reputation as “No Show Jones,” a performer who was likely to be absent for scheduled appearances.

“I go to my lowest point, where I knew in my thinking that there was no way back at all for me,” Jones told The Tennessean. “I’d thrown everything away….. I tried to put puzzles together to make some way out that could turn out positive. And there was nothing.”

He was wrong. There was something.

“He Stopped Loving Her Today” was an emotionally captivating triumph that helped restore his place in the industry, and his new relationship with a Louisiana woman named Nancy Sepulvado influenced him to reign in his eccentricities and curb his excesses. In 1983, Nancy Sepulvado became Nancy Jones, and Nancy Jones became the prime factor in calming Mr. Jones’ agitations, and in smoothing his jagged edges.

No more 'No Show'

“No Show Jones” started to show with regularity, and Jones’ Epic and MCA Records of the 1980s and ‘90s earned radio play. Jones was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1992, and his “I Lived To Tell It All” autobiography became a best-seller in 1996.

No longer a wild-eyed rebel, he became an elder statesmen. He was slowed by open heart surgery in 1994, but had hopes that a move from MCA Records to Asylum would help him to get his music back on the radio.

But in 1999, while working on his first Asylum Album, “The Cold Hard Truth,” Jones wrecked his sport-utility vehicle into a bridge near his Franklin, Tenn., home. He had been drinking prior to the accident, and he suffered a collapsed lung and other serious injuries. His new album’s first single, “Choices,” seemed to address his life’s struggles with addiction.

“I’ve had choices since the day that I was born,” He sang. “There were voices that told me right from wrong/ If I had listened, no, I wouldn’t be here today/ Living and dying with the choices I’ve made.”

“Choices” became the final Top 40 country solo hit of Jones’ life, and his vocal performance on it earned him a Grammy Award. The song was nominated for a Country Music Association single of the year, but Jones was not invited to sing the song in its entirety on the awards show. Alan Jackson, a friend and fan of Jones, appeared on the show and sang an unscheduled, surprise version of “Choices” that drew a standing ovation.

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Jones had some chart success collaborating with younger artists, singing “Beer Run” with Garth Brooks and “4th of July” with Shooter Jennings, son of Jones’ old friend, Waylon Jennings.

Fans’ love for Jones was apparent, as he battled chronic hoarseness and respiratory infections through hundreds of sold-out shows during the latter part of his career. Listeners could hear that stress and age had worn away at his voice, but they cheered through concerts that found Jones working his way through a lifetime of hits.

In 2008, President George W. Bush spoke of Jones’ indelible contributions to American culture while presenting Mr. Jones with a Kennedy Center Honor. And in 2012, Jones received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy from the Recording Academy.

“I think this is one of the greatest things that can happen to you,” he said of his Grammy. “It’s not the end of my career, I hope, but we’re moving up awful close.”

Jones announced in 2012 that he would embark on a farewell tour in 2013, set to conclude with a Bridgestone Arena concert slated for Nov. 22, 2013, featuring guests including Jackson, Kenny Rogers, Garth Brooks, Bobby Bare and many more. But on April 18, Jones was admitted to a Nashville hospital following a routine check-up that revealed a fever and irregular blood pressure.

Friday morning, following the announcement of Jones’ death, other artists surveyed a legacy that drew author Nick Tosches to proclaim, “He is the spirit of country music, plain and simple. It’s true Holy Ghost.”

Jackson responded, “He’ll always be the greatest singer and interpreter of country music. There’ll never be another.”

“He has a remarkable voice that flows out of him effortlessly and quietly, but with an edge that comes from the story part of the heart,” fellow Hall of Famer Emmylou Harris once said of Jones. “In the South, we call it high lonesome. I think it’s popularly called soul.”